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Topic: Catholic to Orthodox (Read 2873 times)

Hello Orthodox members, this is my first post here and I am glad to be here. Currently I am a Catholic, but I have not been a Catholic for very long. I have spent the last year studying church history and the Catholic doctines and I am unable to totally accept some of the historical additions the Catholic church made so I have in the last month really started have to get into the history, theology and doctines of the Orthodox Church. The nearest Orthodox church is about 90 miles away and I have been dialogue with the local priest there over email. I have two books I am starting to read and they are, The Orthodox Church and For the life of the World. From what I have learned so far I am very interested in the Church, almost as if I am feeling drawn to it. I know I have never attended a service yet, but I will go soon hopefully. I am sure I will have numerous questions but my first questions is If you were a Catholic that converted to Orthodoxy, what brought you to the Orthodox Church?

I was born Roman Catholic and converted to Orthodoxy when I was young (ten years old) with my mother. I didn't know the differences of converting to one or the other since I wasn't at church much so I went along with it with my mom but I came to understand Orthodoxy and the differences it has with Catholicism. My mom had a few reasons for converting. She was attracted to the Eastern rite since our family attended one before I was born. She also had a problem with the modernist attitude in the Catholic Church also like the attitude during Vat II which changed music and introduced a lot of things Protestant into the RCC. The Eastern Rite priest told her about Orthodoxy and she looked into it

I'm not quite (or rather not yet) in the same place as "Altar Server" but I think "Novus Ordo fatigue" has finally caught up with me and it got to the point where I started exploring my options. There are far too many parishes within a 25 mile radius of where I live, although you'd have to go all the way downtown Toronto to encounter the Russians.

I'm strongly considering Orthodoxy from Catholicism, however various issues are currently slowing this down, especially union with the Bishop of Rome. I love Eastern worship, and that there is a unity of belief. In Catholicism, we have the Roman Catholic church and various Eastern Catholic churches, all making up the Catholic Church. While it is commonly portrayed as having the same Faith in all churches, just different "expressions" or "traditions", I haven't really seen this all the time. For example, not all Eastern Catholics accept all Ecumenical Councils accepted by the Roman church, especially when they discuss doctrine such as Purgatory and how that involves areas such as temporal punishment. Also, some do not accept Papal Infallibility. There are other issues as well, and these drive me towards Orthodoxy, but then I think about union with the Pope, the Catholic "network", including lots of parishes, hospitals, schools (including top colleges, I attended Georgetown), bookstores, charities, etc. Those are more peripheral concerns, but I randomly think about that "community network" that I would miss.

I am currently converting (Aren't we all?) to the Church. I was raised Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist at the same time. My Catholicism never meant much to me as a child, but upon encountering Orthodoxy it brought back a flood of memories from my childhood that I did not know were there. Some of those Roman Catholic roots really helped in the path and the process, and I am thankful that my mother at least cared enough to take me most Sundays, even if I didn't understand what was happening.

I've befriended an Eastern Catholic who is educating me and filling out my knowledge gaps on the "East". One of her mentors decades ago was a Ukrainian Catholic who was very much an anti-Latinizer. A couple of queries on Augustine, purgatory, standing on Sunday etc.. pretty much established which side of the fence she was on. We actually discussed St. Isaac the Syrian a few days ago (she wants me to lend her my Metropolitan Hilarion book when I am done with it). She told me that Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 23 formed the basis for a text from the pre-Sanctified liturgy, which has been attributed to St. Isaac. It was explained to me that in Russian, the word for purgatory is some combination of "sh-ch-sh" something-or-other, a synonym for banya. Yes, those outdoor wooden saunas where you hit your back with branches and leaves. Apparently that's purgatory in Russian. Weird huh?

I'm actually happily at the moment almost exclusively attending Eastern Catholic liturgies... and in my spare time exposing myself to literature and liturgies in an Orthodox setting. So in a way, I'm currently going through a de-latinization.

I am also a recent Catholic convert interested in becoming Orthodox. I was drawn to Catholicism from Mormonism on theological and historical grounds. As I continued my studies after becoming Catholic, I learned about Orthodoxy and discovered that the theological and historical foundation of Orthodoxy is even stronger. I am convinced that Orthodoxy better preserves the original, authentic apostolic tradition and has the best claim to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. The two most important items that make me lean Orthodox are what I consider to be the apostolic origin of the conciliar model of decision-making in matters of faith and morals (as opposed to Rome's doctrine of papal supremacy, which I consider to be a late development and not part of the original apostolic teaching), and the close parallels between the symbols and style of worship in the Orthodox Divine Liturgy and the worship and theology of first century temple-centric Jews, which the apostles were when Jesus called them and gave them the new covenant. As the Jewish temple and its liturgical rites (involving high priest, sacrifice, and the holy of holies) were a prefigurement of Christ our Great High Priest and his eternal sacrifice, it is not surprising that the Christian liturgy developed by the apostles and their successors would expand upon those rites and give them a Christian meaning. Reading the books of Hebrews and Revelation, and the writings of the earliest Church Fathers (e.g., Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Iraneus, Origin and Clement of Alexandria) make clear that the temple and its theology was the touchstone for the first Christians as christian theology and practice developed. The Orthodox Divine Liturgy retains numerous elements obviously inspired by or based upon Jewish temple rites, but are expressed in terms of Our Lord's eternal sacrifice and Christian theology, exactly what you would expect in a church founded by Jewish, temple-centric fishermen. In fact, it's quite accurate to say that if anyone wants to know what ancient Jewish temple rites might have been like, just visit an Orthodox church, which is the only place in the world where echoes of the ancient temple are preserved. Rome used to preserve many of these elements in its Liturgy and plan of buildings, but has since downplayed much of it since Vatican II and the rise of the Novus Ordo rites. To me, Orthodoxy truly possesses the original body of apostolic teaching, even down to the style of the liturgy and the plan of church buildings.

"A native Californian, Fr. Paul was born in 1954 in San Francisco and raised in nearby Marin County. His upbringing was solidly Roman Catholic; he attended both primary and secondary Catholic schools and graduated from Marin Catholic High School in 1972. Becoming disaffected with Roman Catholicism at first because of liturgical changes, Fr. Paul investigated Christian history and traditions with a view to understanding the authentic Christian liturgical ethos and the development of the historic faith. This study led him to the conclusion that where Roman Catholicism differed from Eastern Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy had in fact preserved the authentic tradition."

Plain and simple the Liturgy is what first brought me to Orthodoxy the study of Church history came later with a Priest who has since retired. I came from the Catholic Church but not just any old Catholic I was baptized into the Catholic Church but after some Church history I became a member of The Society of Saint Pius X. But came to realize that what the traditionalist groups forget is that Rome has not been in error since just Vatican II but for 1 and a half thousand years or so. So in short I knew I had to become Orthodox I too felt "drawn" to the Church. I am in the same boat as you the nearest OC Church is 125 miles away so I dont get to liturgy more than once or twice a year when we have a visiting Priest.

Novus Ordo fatigue very early on, in my case because I was partly raised (that means when my parents did go to church this is what I was exposed to) provincial, conservative Anglican (dignified services with chant and the priest's 'back to the people') so the Vatican II liberal culture shock was too much. I was Roman on and off for about 10 years, never sticking with it longer than a couple of years at a time. Later I read Thomas Day who explained the cultural difference perfectly: it would have saved me a lot of time and grief (although I like traditional Western Catholicism in itself a lot).

A Ukrainian Catholic friend in high school whose grandparents and parents were WWII refugees. He took me to the first Byzantine Liturgy I ever went to, 24 years ago, a spoken one with no incense and kneeling Communion with a foreign-born priest who had little English and a small second-generation congregation.

The sense of a united people and a whole culture, like a big family: this old-fashioned worship isn't a show put on to patronise some people (which for example is how the RC authorities treat Eastern Riters and Latin Massers) but simply the normal way this church worships.

So yeah, in short, 'I like the liturgy' and then seeing hints pointing to the deeper stuff, much of which I don't pretend to understand.

I don't brag about it online and say everything's perfect in practice. It's not but it's nice. Which I think is how a lot of born Orthodox feel.

So I've been here for 14 years.

I've never met in person a born Eastern Catholic who wasn't latinised.

The Eastern Catholic converts online (in a small church they're still a drop in the bucket) who deny Rome's teachings are hypocritical.

I was born Roman Catholic, and now I'm 25. After 3 years of unbroken studies, ignited by my studies of Russian language and culture, I finally discovered the true Church. I've always been a "believer" meaning I've always (since childhood) embraced Christianity with sincerity, but I began to criticize Catholicism, in particular Papal infallibility. So, I took on the Sola Scriptura method, first appreciating groups such as the Valdese-Methodist Church, but their lack of a "true" liturgy disgusted me. Then, I came to realize that many so-called traditions of the Roman Church were not so "contrary" to the Bible, and began to consider Holy Tradition... to discover that most times, the Roman Catholic Church didn't "get the point", damaging the image of what the Church Fathers said.After an accademical study on Iconography at university I finally explored what I was looking for: a Church which read the Scriptures "through the Church Fathers", having a wonderful liturgy, practicing the sacraments in their original form attested by Tradition, a long-standing dogmatic tradition (1000 years without new dogmas merits a pretty good Guinness award!), and of course no infallible individual claiming supremacy at its head... everything was so perfect that my conversion was finally decided.

in Christ, Alex

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"Also in the Catholic Church itself we take great care that we hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and properly Catholic" (St. Vincent of Lérins, "The Commonitory")